A female suspect in the immigration ‘scam’ targeted by Operation Gambérria has found herself moved from house arrest, with an electronic tag, to preventive custody in jail.
The reason, explain PJ police, is that in spite of her delicate legal position, the woman ‘continued to be an intermediary in the fraudulent sale of health service access to immigrants’.
Two collaborators in this endeavour were arrested last month – and they presumably explained how they were involved in the operation, which will have led police ‘back’ to the woman they arrested in May (and presumed was abiding by the terms of her bail).
This woman, adds the PJ, is one of two ‘administrative workers’ now suspended from their jobs who are believed to have improperly introduced more than 10,000 immigrants into the country’s SNS state health system.
Gambérria initially saw 16 people arrested and another 27 cited as ‘official suspects’: among them various business people, a lawyer, and a Ministry of Foreign affairs employee.
The woman suspect now in jail worked at a USF (Family Health Unit) in Ovar, and is believed to have been involved in ‘selling’ health service access to immigrants over a period of a year and a half. Alongside another female colleague, she is understood to have registered 500 immigrants to the same address in Rua do Benformoso in Lisbon.
The seriousness of these alleged crimes goes well beyond Portugal. As has been explained in previous reports, in receiving access to the Portuguese state health service, immigrants were able to obtain European health cards – giving them free access to healthcare in various countries.
Many of the immigrants who benefited from this scam are no longer even in Portugal, thus unpicking it and finding all its beneficiaries will be an exceptionally difficult task.
Source: SIC Notícias
